


Splendid

by dancinbutterfly



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Chromatic Yuletide, Yuletide, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:25:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2802731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because of Red, this is how Dembe lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Splendid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merryghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/gifts).



> Your letter inspired me profoundly and I had to write this. I hope its okay. Enjoy.

_You know, 29 years ago in Sierra Leone there was a farmer named Samwel Zuma who had the audacity to identify several low level Mombassa operatives to local authorities. The cartel massacred the entire family. But the youngest son, he was sold to a local ring of flesh peddlers. The majority of children in those circumstances don't last more than nine months. He survived eight years. He was 14 when I found him. Too old. Too tall. Too angry and dangerous to be of any further value. He was left to die chained to a standpipe in the basement of a squalid brothel in Nairobi. Branded. Burned. Barely alive. So I took him. Made him well. Saw to his education. He graduated university with a bachelor's in English literature. He speaks four languages fluently and can get by on half a dozen more. He is...splendid. His name is Dembe. Dembe Zuma._

~*~*~

When Dembe is fourteen, he crawls in bed with Red Reddington. He has been with the man two days and he is terrified. The man is sleeping and Dembe moves with the stealth of a cat. He has his pajama bottoms and pants down his hips and his mouth on the man’s cock before a gentle hand comes to rest on his chin. 

“That’s enough of that,” Red says, lifting his face with firm fingers. There is strength but no violence in his touch. Dembe doesn’t know what to do with that. The impulse is to bite so he does and Red doesn’t hit him. He just pulls his hand back.

“Enough,” he repeats, pulling his pants back up. “You are not dependent on either your body or your violence here, Dembe. You’ll believe you’re safe eventually.”

When he is fifteen, he has been with the man for six months and eleven days and the tutors arrive. They are seemingly of every race and they speak to him in gentle voices but they will not take no for an answer. He is to work and work hard. They expect no less. Red expects no less. The proud look on Red’s face when he succeeds makes him cooperate. The smile he gets when Dembe surpasses expectation makes him strive for excellence.

When he is sixteen, he wakes one morning to the realization that he has faith that when he is with Red Reddington he is not in danger of abuse. The rest of the world is still an angry attacker that he must be on guard against at all times, but Red is his haven that day and the next, and they the day after. It is a wonder and when he is alone at night on the fifth day of feeling so, he cries because he realizes that he can’t remember feeling this way before.

He is eighteen when he realizes that Red’s smiles are the only thing that can make him hard. His smile and his mouth and his hands. Dembe is a teenage boy. He is hard often but only Red fills his mind. Red who unshackled him, Red who will only touch his shoulder or back, Red who does not speak his feelings but whose eyes shine brightly with affection whenever they light upon his ruined skin. 

He tries again when he is twenty two. He had graduated from university where he did not sleep with a single person despite Red’s encouragement that he “spread his wings” and “branch out.” His branches are there for Red to climb and his wings will unfurl for Red to see. 

This time he does not go to Red’s bed. He goes to his room and finds him reading in an overstuffed chair. He does not look at the book, does not bother to take it from him. He just leans over and kisses him on the mouth, gentle and closed mouthed because Dembe is a man now and a man can be patient. 

“Dembe,” Red breathes, a little breathless.

“Say no if you do not want me,” Dembe says. “But do not say no because you think it’s wrong. I am old enough to decide for myself what is wrong and what is right. This, for me, is right.”

“You lovely boy,” Red practically hums. “You must know by now I love you don’t you?”

And of course he does. He has known that for years. He doesn’t think it’s the romantic love that his classmates had talked about but he didn’t love Red that way either. Their love was deeper than that, crossing a wider expanse that most people would never understand or experience. 

“That is not an answer.”

“Kiss me again, then. Let me answer you properly.”

Dembe does, cupping the back of Red’s head, moaning a little because contact has never felt this good before. A mouth on him has never been so sweet, hands on his face have never been so gentle. A wave of sadness crashes over him as he locks his hands behind Red’s neck and climbs into his lap. He pushes away to better enjoy the taste of this man he loves more than he has ever loved anyone.

“Do not send me away again,” Dembe says afterwards, when they've migrated from the chair to Red's bed, his head resting on Red’s chest.

“I sent you to school. I hardly sent you to a prison camp in Siberia. Everyone needs a solid education.”

“And now I have one. Now I stay with you.”

“For now,” Red says. He draws a star shape with his fingertips on Dembe’s shoulder. It feels good, so good. Dembe snuggles closer. He does not remember ever being held like this before. It feels so good. 

“For good. You will have to make me leave you. Do you plan to do that?”

Red sighs and stares at the ceiling. “Dembe, my plans don’t have anything to do with it. I want what is best for your health and safety. If that means you leaving then you’ll leave.”

“You are not my father.”

“Considering what we just did I have to say thank God.”

“Red.”

“Lets not talk about this now, hm?”

Dembe lets it drop but decides then that he will not like safety be the reason they are parted. He asks for training the next morning and Red stares him down with his knowing eyes. It takes him two days to answer but when he does it is in the form of another tutor. 

She is an ex-Mossad agent and she works him into the ground on everything from weapons training to hand to hand six hours a day, six days a week. When he asks her for seven days a week she says no. She is an Orthodox Jew and takes the Sabbath off. He respects her for her convictions and remembers that his father used to go to the mosque to pray five times a day before- Before.

When he is twenty-five, he begins to study Islam again and Red joins him. They memorize the Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ together and practice until they are both exhausted. Once, Red recites it to him when they make love and Dembe comes crying, even though he knows it is blasphemy.

When Dembe is thirty-four, he stands facing Red a trapped a glass box, reciting the Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ in unison again, knowing that Anslow Garrick is going to kill him and he is not afraid to die. His family is waiting for him in heaven and so is Luli. He is not going to die alone where once, when he was a small boy, he thought he would. But he will not. He will die with Red here, loving him. 

When Dembe is six years old, he survives. When Dembe is thirty-four, he lives.


End file.
